Mt. Coot-tha Botanical Garden

Brisbane has two botanical gardens: one in the city proper and one up Mt. Coot-tha, a popular tourist lookout.

The Mt. Coot-tha botanical gardens and awesome, and I'm sad to say that I forgot to bring my camera with me. I saw some pretty neat trees and plants. They had a whole garden of just lavender and rosemary, a cinnamon tree and a fig tree, just to name a very few. The fig tree was very cool--the figs grow in clusters along the trunk and branches, no where near the leaves. Additionally, I saw their Japanese garden and bonsai house. The bonsais were amazing--most of them were quite large and intricately crafted. I'm very interested in growing a bonsai now.

After my walk around the gardens, I looked in at their lending library. I picked up some hiking maps since I have one last day in Brisbane on my own. I think that tomorrow I'll go back to Mt. Coot-tha. I heard it was only good for its view, but apparently there are some good trails and a nature hut, too.

On Saturday we're planning on going to the Lone Pine Koala Reserve. You can actually hold a koala there (of course, you have to pay extra!), but I'm not very keen. I hear they smell and hurt, besides, I'd rather see one doing its own thing in a tree. The reserve also has a platypus pool (okay, I'll try to get a decent picture this time, Clark) among some other cool animals. Laura, Bon and I would really rather go to the Daisy Hill Koala Sanctuary since it's free, a national park, and just lets the koalas be natural. Unfortunately, there's really no good way to get there by bus.

By the way, Queensland is one of the only states in which you can hold a koala. You'll be happy to know, however, that the koalas slated for holding have their own human-run union that makes sure they're not being overworked. You have to remember that koalas sleep up to 23 hours day and then spend their remaining time cramming down fist-fulls of eucalyptus.

Bon works late tonight, so it's just Laura and I for dinner. We're planning on nachos, guacamole--the avocados 80 cents here!-- and homemade salsa. Hopefully, Laura will bring home another package of Lamingtons today. We bought a 12 pack yesterday and demolished them in an hour. Lamingtons are a famous Australian dessert. Originally, they were rectangles of stale cake dipped in chocolate and then coconut. The cheap ones we bought last night were sponge cake covered in shoddy looking chocolate and sad-looking coconut (think Hostess snowball coconut)... and, good Lord, they were phenomenal. Shockingly tasty. I can only imagine what the bakery Lamingtons taste like... Anyways, I'd show you a picture, but we ate them all. You can see a picture here.